21 October 2011

Last Saturday my wife and I took our daughter down to get here first Games Workshop experience. I figured that it was long past time to get her immersed in the scene.

Ok well it was really so that I could get my Eisenhorn Omnibus signed by Dan Abnett. My wife was just kind enough to accompany me down and get a copy of Guardians of the Galaxy hardcover trade 1 signed for a buddy. A thank you gift for presiding at our wedding. Sure it was 2.5 years late but its the thought that counts right lol.

Dan was really down to Earth and willing to answer all our questions. From those Ive garnered a couple of small possible spoilers for your enjoyment. Both concern future works of his.

First up we should expect to see an Imperial Fists stand alone title very shortly. From what I get from this I would say end of the year 1st quarter of 2012 at the latest.

The next order of business concerns our more human interests in the Grim-dark Future. No not the Ghosts, think a bit my secretive. Yeah that's right. The Inquisition. Dan is planing a new trilogy with the first book to be out by this time next year. The setting for this is after the events of Eisenhorn and Ravenor. Making them a trilogy of trilogies.

The twist comes from who the main character will be. The one and only Ms Alizebeth Bequin. Yep that's right, she comes out of her coma, and seems to make her self to be quite the important person to the Ordos.

Yeah ok I know not that big a spoiler but it was good news to me. I am looking forward to this release. I may even break down and buy these ones individually instead of waiting for the Omnibus as I usually do.

18 October 2011

So going into Sunday I knew my 3-1 record would put me somewhere near the top and I was excited to see exactly where. Upon entering the venue I quickly made my way over to the pairings sheets to see what bracket I would be in.

Lo and behold I was in the Silver Bracket, which meant I was not in contention for Tournament Champ but at least I could possible win my bracket and take that award. In my bracket was the 1 Ork player; Ned Merrick w/ Blood Angels, my first round opponent, and who I would face in the finals if we both won rounds 5 +6; a Space Wolves player; a fellow DE guy though he was running an entire Footdar army; a Grey Knights player, who I would face in Round 5; and 2 others I didnt catch. No matter how it broke down I knew this was going to be a long hard fight, but first I had to get past one of the 2 worst match-ups for Dark Eldar, Grey Knights (the other being mech guard.)

Now onto to the report
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When first looking at his list I was surprised by how "soft" it was compared to the 3-6 Dread, Purifier/Henchmen spam I am used to. I was feeling pretty good going into this.

He won the roll and elected to go first. He got 5 on his roll for Grand Master Ability which allowed him to give his Purifiers, Paladins, and Dreadknight the scout USR. He would choose to outflank all 3. He also combat squaded the Strike Squad and the Interceptors and chose to have the Termies Deep Strike.

Deployed his Grand master and combat half of the strike squad as close to the center objective as he could. I then deployed my Hellions and Baron as close as I could to my left quarter's objective and still remain 18 away from his unit. I chose not to try and steal as I knew I would need that all important "clean-up turn."

He walked on one half on the Interceptors with Librarian attached, the Dreadnaught and the shooty half of his Strike Squad on my left side, the other half of the Interceptors would shunt to mid field on this same side. His other remaining Strike Squad walked in on the right side. He took a few pop shoots at the Hellions who took one loss and were then removed from LOS from the rest of his army.

Knowing that he had outflankers, deep strikers and half a unit of Interceptors left to shunt I chose to gun line my army so that where ever he came in I would have targets to shoot at. I tried to use a raider and 10 man unit to shut down his ability to come in on the left flank, this would prove to be disastrous as he got all his reserves on T2 before I could spread out enough. I also tried to get a first turn charge with Vect and this would also fail due to difficult terrain leaving him and the Brides out on the open. I shot and killed a few models here and there but with them being fearless it didnt do much.

On turn 2 and all his reserves on the table I was toast. His Purifiers and Paladins came in on the left flank, the Dreadknight on the right. He would proceed to flame away the Raider and Warriors on that side, as well as blow the Venoms down with the Dreadknight's Cannon. The GW dice finally fully turned on me (after rolling 7 ones in a row over 2 games when it came to saving my Hellions) and I failed every Flickerfield and Cover Save my flyers had. He would go on a hot steak and every penetration roll would result in a wreck or explode result. He would also kill off every Bride, leaving Vect to fend for himself.

Basically this game ended for me on his turn 2. I did get some good shots in. Examples, killing his Grandmaster, 10 Grey Knights and Librarian with Vect before he died to a shot from a Psycannon. Taking 5 wounds off the Dreadknight with a 10 man Warrior unit before he would charge it directly into my Agoniser toting Wych who would kill it off. My Wychs holding up 5 Termies and 10 Grey Knights for 3 turns before fleeing combat.

I would end up tabled. Not the way I wanted to leave the event. But going 3-2 overall was not bad seeing that I went 2-2-1 at last year's Conflict. Hopefully its a start to some better showings in the coming year.
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PS - If you read this Mike, I apologize for being so moody at the end. Losing in the manner that I did (because of cursed dice, I swear I am never using GW dice again and in fact I lined up the cube and summery executed 2 of them just for giggles, my wife thinks I'm a bit crazy now) just didn't sit well and I did not lose gracefully as I usually do. That was unfair to you and if we meet again I hope it will be under better circumstances.
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Now for some pics of the better looking armies I saw over the weekend.

We rolled, I won, gave him first turn. I knew with half his army deep striking that I wanted to be more reactionary in my deployments.

He put one Termi unit in the LR, walked one on, and Deep Striked the rest. He put his LR, and Typhoons all on the right side of the board (from my perspective). His walking unit came in on the left flank.

I set up my Hellions opposite hiding in a building to hold that objective, with both Venoms and a Warrior Raider, and two Ravs. I gun-lined the rest with Vect and the brides all the way to the left flank and Wychs in center.

His turn one he droops in a squad to support the rest of his army and Belial's squad on my left flank to support the walking unit and try keep me from moving towards those objectives (or so he thought) His Typhoons fired but didn't do much.

Thanks to where he placed Belial I was able to move my Raider up, disembark, run and assault 1st turn with Vect's unit. This combat would last the rest of the game, with him throwing the walking unit and the last Deep Strike unit into the fray. By the end of the game I had 1 Shardnet Wych left alive holding off the last 2 TH/SS Terminators. Vect killed Beliel and a whole load of Termies but finally fell to a Thunderhammer.

I wrecked the raider and a typhoon on turn 1, And ended up locking those two units of Termies up with the Wychs. With most of his army tied up I was able to move out with my raider squads and hellions to grab 4 out of the 5 objectives. A solid victory for me. By this point I am in love with Vect and Shardnet Brides.

2-1 at this point I am doing better than my last GT and am pretty happy with how things are going.
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Well I was happy, right until I saw the pairings for round 4. Yep, thats right, I got matched up versus my fellow Ordo Malleus club member and car pool buddy Matt. To make matters worse he and I played a practice game (using the same scenario) the week before and he tabled me. So I was not looking forward to this round what so ever.

(fortunately got some pics of his army earlier in the day when I was shooting all the nice looking armies)

We rolled, I won again but let him go first (I planned to try and Seize)

He castled up around a building with all his long fangs inside it and the Rhino with Rune Priest behind. The LasBacks were along his table edge and the Cav were out in front to lead out.

I put the hellions in my building (yet again). Put my Ravs are forward as I could. With the Wychs and 1 warrior raider along the center line. the rest were along my table edge.

I attempted to seize and this is were the game ended for Matt. I was successful in my attempt. I moved my Raiders from center-line into that quarter, while moving the Venoms to get LOS on his cav. The other warrior raiders boosted to that quarter. While Vect's moved up 12 so I could disembark, run, and assault a thundercav unit on T1 I now had three quarters and he was trapped in his own deployment zone.

I used the Ravs and Raiders to stop his LasBacks from doing anything and lit up one of the thundercav with Venoms, killing them all. I then charged the Lord's unit with Vect. That combat lasted till his turn and I was able to get the last cav unit on my turn. Meanwhile I finished off the LasBacks and Rhino and their contents. My Venoms died to Long Fangs but their warriors were able to move to grab the center objective and the right quarter and its objective.

Game ended on 5 with only his Fangs and Rune Priest left at full strength

3-1 this puts me in the top 16 at the end of day 1. Now its just a matter of tiebreakers to figure out which bracket I will be in for day 2.
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Remaining round and pics of the best armies will be posted up Tuesday or so. Plus Look for some spoilers from my recent trip to GW 8th street for Dan Abnett's book signing to come within the week.

11 October 2011

So this weekend I attended the Battle for Salvation GT and had a blast. I unfortunately was unable to make the doubles event due to a car accident but once the rental was delivered I made a point of being able to make the rest of the weekend. Let me first say that the BFS guys put on a really great event. I was very happy with the entire weekend overall(baring making use a GW cube of dice While I understand the desire to ensure that there is no way for anyone to call foul when we are all using the same brand new dice and tape measures, I just wish it had been anything else but GW dice. There are very few superstitions I believe in. But just like white lighters this is one of them. As we all know GW are cursed with terrible rolls and once again I had occasion to see this first hand this weekend.)

Since this was a NOVA format event I knew that going troop heavy would be necessary in order to capture all goals in each round. And with an almost guarantee of being able to go first if I wanted to I was happy spending the points on Vect and the Baron. After them and the three Ravagers that no good Archon leaves Commorragh without I was pretty set as to what I could afford to fill in the rest of the list.

Vect is a one man Deathstar and I need a support element that would keep him alive as long as possible. Thinking that the meta would be Grey Knight heavy I also needed to fit in a good tarpit.

After that it was fit as much AT and AI shooting in as I could. And as my buddy Matt found out in round 4, venoms bring the pain.

So there is my reasoning for my choices. And with the exception of some terrible rolling every time it came to my Hellions I was quite happy with how the army performed over all.
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Coming in at 18 Kill Points I was a little worried about this mission, but then he weighed in at 20 and I was "ok lets do this."

We rolled for deployment and I won the option. Knowing that this was going to a hard matchup I opted for that all important clean up turn so I deferred to him.

He deployed a LasPlasBack and Mephi. I setup my Hellions w/ Baron to camp on the one objective in my deployment zone that was in cover and to bait his units to one side so I could employ a denied flank approach to the match. Unfortunately two things happened. One was I forgot about the pods and he dropped two on my head and flamed the hell out of the Hellions. Leaving just the Baron alive. The 2nd was he didnt take the bait and deployed in a gun line. Wedged up so to ensure maximum cover to his Backs with the Preds leading.

Not wanting to disturb the flow of the game I choose not to take pics past initial setups for any match on the wknd.

My turn 1 I I engaged both dreads and a pod with my Wychs hoping to haywire them down as well as tie them up for a couple turns. The rest of my army went more towards the left flank. I blew up the pod, shook up the dreads and sat in combat for 3 turns. Then things get fuzzy because after a few days its so damn hard remember much more than the highlights. A few items of note where Vect once again taking down Mephi in single combat before Mephi could even swing. He then proceeded to beat down an Assault Squad and was on his way to another when the game ended. Baron failed his Shadow save to a headbutting Dread that had lost both its Talons to Haywire Grenades. I had taken some hits but I could have come back but the game ended on 5 and he was ahead on points.

0-1

Not a great start to the wknd but not unrecoverable either.
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Since he had no display table I was not able to get a good shot of the army before the round began.

I again won the deployment roll and deferred to him

He castled up around a terrain piece that had been reinforced by Lysander and kept his jumpers in reserve. I castled around my own building and decided that with this mission hitting fast and hard would win it for me so attempted to seize the initiative. Thanks to Vect and his special rules I was easily able to do so and went hunting.

I didnt get a shot before I made 1st turn movements but you can pretty much figure out what I did.

My first proprieties were the Land Raider, Vindi, and AssBack as I knew those were going to do the most damage to me. The whirlwind was a concern but with it being in that back corner I knew I wasnt getting to it for awhile. I moved out of my corner boosting Vect and the Brides behind some trees to take that quarter. Unseen in the photo above is a couple Raiders that swung out to the left to take that quarter and get LOS to the Vindi. I proceeded to Immobilize the Land Raider with my Ravagers and blow the Demolisher off the Vindi with my hidden Raiders. I could not focus on my continued spread of wanton destruction. And thats exactly what I did. He disembarked the termis and Lysander, moved what was still able to do so forward and it was my turn again. Vect and his Brides went right for the termies and over the next few comabts (with the jump troops joining in) I was able to whittle it down to just Lysander and the Libby alive. (yep Vect went down to a thunderhammer :( ) But now they were in the open for my Venom Squads :) I feel a little bad for the guy because he rolls where crap all game long. By turn 5 he had only the troops in the building alive and everything was dead or a wreck.

1-1 still not the best bracket to be in but progress is progress and I was feeling a little better about my day.
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Rounds 3-5 and random pics of pretty armies will be forth coming. But I have to work 7 out of the next 8 days (6 of them in a row, 10 hrs/day) so the next update might be a little while to come out. If need be I'll post up the random army pics later this week and come back to the batreps next week. Hope your enjoying the show so far.